August/2008

Last night I was talking with Ben about different mediums for discovering new music. He and a group of his pals were sharing their "top 10 songs from artists you think not many of your friends know."

Man, what a great category.

I like the idea of sharing the weird recent finds, the old stuff that has faded from memory, and the stuff that your buddies should at least hear once.

I couldn't keep it to 10. It took serious willpower to trim to 20. Michael was pressuring me to add restricted comments to my blog... getting other's "you probably don't know this band" playlists is actually enough motivation to consider it.

• Braintax / Panorama / Anti-Grey
• Butter 08 / Butter 08 / 9mm
• Elliott Smith / Figure 8 / Junk Bond Trader
• Gary Young / Hospital / Plantman
• HaloBenders / God Don't Make No Junk / Don't Touch My Bikini
• Helium / The Dirt of Luck / Superball
• Jeans Team / Music von Oben / Oh Bauer
• Kicking Giant / Alien ID /
• MC Paul Barman / Paullelujah / Cock Mobster
• Mercury Rev / Yerself is Steam / Chasing a Bee
• Minders / Cul-de-Sacs and Dead Ends / Hand Me Downs
• Neutral Milk Hotel / In the Aeroplane Over the Sea / King of the Carrot Flowers
• Potap Feat and Nastya Kamenskih / ? / Ne Para
• The Benevento Russo Duo / Best Reason To Buy The Sun / Welcome Red
• Slant 6 / Inzomnia / Babydoll
• Swervedriver / Mezcal Head / Duel
• The Evens / Get Evens / Everybody Knows
• The Olivia Tremor Control / Singles and Beyond / A Sunshine Fix
• Thirty Ought Six / Hag Seed / Eris
• Trans Am / Futureworld / Television Eyes

Update: Okay already. I added commenting.

I've been wanting to play with HDR stuff for awhile now. Finally took a crack at it this weekend after finding a pict I took last summer in Warm Springs, Oregon. (Right outside of Kah-Nee-Tah.) I'm a sucker for abandoned buildings, for some reason.

It was a pretty dreary day, summer storm was coming in. Once the exposures were merged, the colors looked much less "pastel" than I expected. Actually, it was pretty washed out. Decided to go black and white instead.

Overall, I'm fairly pleased with it. I obviously need to use a tripod next time (the embossed look on the horizon trees is due to my movement.) Also the the clouds could stand to be more... interesting.

Next up -- find some better subject matter, and maybe try a nighttime HDR panorama.